Unreliable Network Slows Student Success
We have all had those moments in college when we’re rushing to turn in an assignment at the last minute. Maybe we had a prior engagement or simply just forgot that we had something due. But what do you do when there is nowhere to turn in your assignment and it is still due at the end of the day?
This is what Morehouse students are having to deal with year in and year out. Although no institution is perfect, and every student can find at least one thing that they would improve at their institution they’re something that should always be available to students while at their respective institution. One of those things is a consistent internet connection for students to not only use but also rely on in times to turn work in, find out about job opportunities, internships and receive campus alerts.
“I have been here five years, and nothing has changed internet wise, in fact things get worse and worse each year,” said Emani Rashad fifth year senior
Lately, Morehouse College has been in the headlines for a number of reasons. Oprah Winfrey’s charitable donation of 13 million dollars to her scholarship program, a large amount of professors recently threatening to walk out, and the various sexual assault cases that take twitter by storm. Still with all of this going on the school is still able to create the illusion that everything is fine at Morehouse ; attempting to with mask its glaring needs by just throwing a banner up over it or simply just painting over the issue instead of actually fixing the problem.
It is this kind of negligence that has allowed the current state of Morehouse to escalate as bad as it is when it comes to supplying students with needed resources to not only successfully get through college but also experience new things. And in these actions, it is that one could say that deep down Morehouse does not care about the success of their students. But more so see the student body as dollar signs that have rent to pay each semester.
“This isn’t an Academic Affairs issue,” Said Melvin Foster Associate Provost for Student Success at Morehouse College
This could be the issue, being that other departments don’t hold each other accountable for mistakes or even know what is going on around campus, to begin with. Professors still assign work to students as if everything is fine, while students are left in a state of stress and confusion as they frantically try and find any way possible to reach out to their professors and turn in any work that may be due that day. Now even with times being hard in terms of getting work in on time students still must get their work in, because many times students will use the lack of internet for the school as an excuse to not even do their work.
“It’s not fair that we are asked to submit work even when the internet is down, but it still isn’t an excuse not to do our work as students,” said Kelechi Ikeasouguh sophomore
When asked the consent internet failures during the academic school year, Morehouse service desk manager had this to say,
“I didn’t even know that blackboard and banner web was down, and I can’t comment on the other years because I just started but from my knowledge, everything was working fine. This is the first time I am hearing this,” said Xavier Faison Service Desk Manager.
These exact responses are the reason that a lot of things at Morehouse are stuck in their ways and don’t seem as if they will change anytime soon, unfortunately.
“The trauma of Blackboard outages have been attacking me, and harrasing me since my intake at Morehouse college right after NSO. Turning in assignments has never been easy at Morehouse but, its especially hard you can’t actually turn your work into a system that is supposed to monitor your grades” said Emani Rashad fifth year senior
With that being said, I think the question becomes when will Morehouse care enough about the students to get what matters fix? Because at the moment Morehouse only cares about pleasing the outside world to get extra funding for a college that is undoubtedly underfunded in ways like putting on a film festival but not spreading the word to the student body, cleaning up and preparing for a visit from Oprah, and even begging students to come to a book signing for the president that he was just a co-author for.
These issue for the students on top of the issue that the school is facing for countless reasons like, sexual assault ( something that still has not been communicated with the student body), professor threatening to walk out on the school, and even the lone academic building where students go to print, study, and even get tutoring year round is still closed although they have been working on it since the start of summer school last year. Just to name a few, at some point when is enough enough and a college starts to act like a college instead of a cash cow?
Lawrence Vaughn senior journalist
